Another recipe for success!

Tuesday, January 19

We’re going to see how you can take some things – and turn them into other things.  It’s an analogy, secretly wrapped in a recipe.  And another recipe for success.

First, the recipe.

What is a recipe, anyway?  It’s just a set of instructions to turn a group of items into a finished product.  A road map to, hopefully, success.

Turn These

Into this

You’re going to have a great day if you start out with a great breakfast.  This is easy to make – and scales from breakfast for two to breakfast for an army easily.

Lansdale Bacon & Egg Cupcakes

Ingredients:

4 large eggs

4 slices bacon

2 slices bread

Fillings – can include:

Cheese

Salsa

Mushrooms

Bell pepper

Ham

Just about anything you can think of!

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Cook bacon – but only lightly, to render the fat.  Bacon should be limp.  Crisp bacon won’t work!   It helps if you choose the longer pieces of bacon in the pack.

Drain bacon.

Find your cupcake tins.  My daughter-in-law gave me some wonderful silicon cupcake trays for Christmas.  Totally amazing.  So much better than the metal ones.  Food slides out – they are truly non-stick.  And easy to clean.  If you have the metal ones, spray with non-stick spray.

Cut out rounds from the bread to fit the bottom of the cupcake indentation.  Smoosh down.

Take a piece of limp bacon and line each cupcake you are going to use.

Put in whatever filling you want.  I used salsa and cheese.  Don’t use a ton – leave room for the egg!

Carefully crack egg into the cup.  Yolk needs to stay intact!

Season with salt and pepper.

Place on middle rack of oven for about 15 minutes.  Egg whites should be just set – and you want the yolks to be runny.

The nice thing about this is that you get to clean the kitchen while the eggs cook.  And balance your checkbook, too.  You know that is overdue.

Remove from oven.  Carefully remove bacon & egg cupcakes from tray.  I find a large spoon and a bit of patience work well.

Serves 2.

Enjoy!

But let’s say I don’t want to transform eggs and bacon into a wonderful breakfast.  Let’s say I want to transform a small, obsolete home in Lansdale Borough into a larger, beautifully designed home with today’s living in mind?

Lansdale Home Renovation

Ingredients:

One small 2 bedroom, 1 bath bungalow – 1,126 square feet

One set of new homeowners with vision

One talented, local architect

One talented, local contractor

A dollop of good taste

Directions:

Combine ingredients.  Stir.  Let sit.  Will double in size. 

Enjoy!

Sounds easy, right?  Well, perhaps not as easy as it sounds.  I wouldn’t do this one alone.  And the homeowners were smart not to go it alone, either.

They hired local architect. Michael Panachyda  (www.mjp-architect.com).  Not only is Mike a great architect, he is a great Lansdale citizen.  He volunteers his time as a member of Lansdale Borough’s Planning Commission.

In my line of business, I see a lot of home renovations, alterations and additions that were done without the assistance of an architect.  And you can always tell.  Always. 

Thinking of a home project?  As small as remodeling a kitchen to as big as doubling the size of your house?  Hire an architect.  The investment you make will more than pay for itself when it comes to the value you are adding to your home.

Equally as important as a good architect is a good contractor.  The contractor makes sure what you see on paper is what you get at the end of the project.

The contractor for this project was another local businessman – Kevin Dunigan owner of Dunigan & Company Builders, LLC.

Kevin, besides being a great contractor, is also a great citizen.  He serves as the vice-chair of Lansdale Borough’s Planning Commission.  Kevin is also a familiar face to all of Lansdale Ward 3-3 voters.  He is the Judge of Elections, responsible for the smooth operation of our polling place.

This small, two bedroom, one bath bungalow went from this:

Before - click to enlarge

To this four bedroom, two and a half bath home:

After- click to enlarge

For those that like plans, the house went from this:

Before - click to enlarge

To this (on the first floor):

After- click to enlarge

I could go on and on about this renovation.  About how it’s such a smart design.  How it allows the homeowners to age in place with a main floor master and bath.  How it’s the type of home that today’s home owners want to buy.  How this home has helped spur the housing revitalization we are seeing in town.

See more pictures, and read about this project at Mike’s business Facebook – CLICKHERE.

There are two important pieces to this recipe for success:

#1 We have a lot of very talented professionals and tradespeople in our borough.  So don’t think your shopping and support of our local businesses starts and stops on Main and Broad Streets.  Patronize the people that know our town best – the architects, the contractors, the roofers, the painters, the doctors, the house cleaners that all live in the borough.  When you support the people who live here, you support the borough we live in.  Let’s keep our money local!

#2 We will make our borough a better place when we update our obsolete housing stock.  Whether it is large scale projects like Cannon Square, Williamson Square or Andale Green or one-off projects like the one I just talked about, our town will become more attractive to more people, and their money to support local businesses, when we have more houses that people want to live in.

Thanks to Citizens for the Revitalization of Lansdale Facebook page, I stopped in to meet a store owner I never met before.  I visited The Shabby Attic on West Main Street and met owner Karin Hendricks.

What a cool shop!  First off, it’s in one of my favorite buildings on Main Street – an old Buick dealership with a decidedly southwestern flair.  Inside you’ll find really neat re purposed furniture.  Really creative stuff.  Things you would expect to see on TV.  Karin and her team have a whole heap of creativity.  And then some.

While not in the market for furniture right now, I did pick up a nice old ceramic bowl filled with dried Hydrangeas. 

How do you realize that it is really windy out?  When you try to carry a nice old ceramic bowl filled with dried Hydrangeas outside.

But they did make it home, and look very nice on that table I made out of an old clay planter and a piece of glass.   Kindred spirits, so to speak.

Karin did tell me something I am not allowed to share.  I also now realize that I hate keeping secrets.  But keep it I will, until I can tell all of you.  And I’m looking forward to telling you, because I think it’s pretty amazing.  Stay tuned.

Lansdale Shopping Score:  1

My turn to make dinner, so it’s off to Acme I go.  Yes.  Outside the borough.

Lansdale Shopping Score:  Zero (I would have if I could have, but it’s something not available in the borough)

So, today’s score:

ONE opportunity to shop/eat in Lansdale met.

ONE needs not fulfilled by a Lansdale establishment.

Let’s see what today brings!